Quotulatiousness

October 22, 2019

Papers Behind the Pistol: Mauser’s Archives on the Model 1910

Filed under: Business, Germany, History, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Oct 2019

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

Courtesy of the Paul Mauser Archive, we have a very cool opportunity to look at the documentation and paperwork behind a production pistol design, from beginning to commercial sales. This sort of documentation is rare for pre-WW1 German small arms in general, and the Mauser Model 1910 pistol is a very rare example of a complete set of archival papers surviving. So, what we can look at is the whole development process from behind the scenes at Mauser. Initial design drawings, blueprints, glass-plate photography, internal assembly instructions, costing, corporate-level final approval, marketing, and final print manuals. Thanks to Mauro Baudino for supplying these original documents for me to show you!

The Paul Mauser Archive (http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/in…) is a wealth of information for researchers, and make sure to check out the recent book on Mauser coauthored by Mauro Baudino and Gerben van Vlimmeren:

https://amzn.to/2LIXH3p

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

October 11, 2019

The National Basketball Appeasement Association

Filed under: Business, Cancon, China, History, Liberty, Politics, Sports, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Colby Cosh discusses the moral squalor, cowardice, avarice, and reflex appeasement gesturing of the NBA and finds a Canadian angle to the whole mess:

The National Basketball Association has spent the week trying to control the effects of a tweet by Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, who jeopardized his job on Friday when he told readers “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.” The tweet winked out of existence quickly, but it had prodded a sore spot. Morey faced immediate criticism from the Rockets’ owner and from the Chinese consul in Houston. Steps were taken within China to declare the Rockets personae non gratae and to cancel some NBA broadcasts.

[…]

Which leads to us to the true Canadian angle, copyright Colby J. Cosh 2019 (all rights reserved). Daryl Morey’s tweet was the 21st century’s “Vive le Quebec libre.”

All right, Morey isn’t a statesman, as de Gaulle was — but the NBA itself wants us to believe that it is a force for international harmony, and Morey is a prominent figure in the NBA. There is an amusing subplot here in that Morey has traditionally been regarded as an outsider in the league, a computer nerd who barged his way in by using technical analytics to improve team performance both on the court and at the gate. The natural assumption of a person who went to university in the 1990s is that he would be perfectly free as a matter of course to blurt out a political opinion — one that is in no way remotely controversial in the free world — on Twitter. Well, we are all learning to revise such assumptions.

When General de Gaulle uttered the 1967 version of an ill-advised, impulsive tweet, it created a small spasm of anger in English Canada, as Morey’s endorsement of an increasingly separatist protest movement in Hong Kong has. (Chinese sovereignty in Hong Kong is supposed to be as much an accepted fact as Canadian sovereignty in Quebec, and from the Party point of view, the Hong Kong protests are internal civil disorder. The same, of course, would go for China’s re-education camps full of Uyghurs, who represent the fate that pro-democracy Hong Kongers are trying to avert.)

But it was the Canadian political establishment that de Gaulle really provoked to rage with his sly, ambivalent remark. It was seen as an offence against hospitality. Canada’s mandarins — pardon the inadvertent pun — knew that de Gaulle’s resounding “liiibre” would give, above all, moral impetus to the enemies of Confederation. This proved to be the case, as far as history can tell. Et donc — vive Hong Kong! Vive Hong Kong libre!

September 29, 2019

QotD: Crony capitalists and corrupt politicians love tariffs

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Any survey – and certainly any careful study – of the history and reality of tariff policy confirms that tariffs (and other trade restrictions) are almost always dispensed, not for any plausible public-interest reasons, but to satisfy the private interests of rent-seekers. Even if, contrary to fact, economic journals and textbooks were filled with several plausible scenarios under which trade restrictions can improve the economic well-being of home-country residents, the actual history of trade policy is that this policy is one in service to domestic plunderers.

Many who agree with me here will nevertheless scold me for using, à la Bastiat, the provocative word “plunderers.” But I stick to my choice of words.

“Plunderers” is descriptive, for plunder is in fact what trade restrictions are all about. For two and a half centuries now we proponents of free trade have played mostly on the rhetorical turf of protectionists. On this turf there are language biases galore, such as “trade deficit,” a lowering of home-country tariffs described as “concessions” to foreign countries, the arrival in the home country of especially low-priced imports condemned as “dumping,” and, indeed, the word “protection” itself. Also, don’t forget the constant, clanking parade of inapposite military and sports metaphors.

For two and a half centuries now we proponents of free trade have typically treated the efforts of rent-seekers and rent-dispensers to portray their use of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of others with intellectual and moral respect. Why?

No one attempts to intellectually rationalize the theft and violence committed by street gangs. No one attempts to rationalize shoplifting, vandalism, armed robbery, arson, or rape. (It would, do note, be child’s play for a competent economics graduate student to develop a coherent theory of “optimal gang violence” that shows that, under just the right set of circumstances, there is an “optimal” amount of gang violence that improves the national welfare.) We call these destructive exercises of theft, coercion, and violence “theft,” “coercion,” and “violence.” We call these predatory activities what they really are.

By calling protectionism what it really is – the plunder of the many by the politically powerful few – we more vividly and widely expose protectionism’s ugly and cruel reality.

Don Boudreaux, “Quotation of the Day…”, Café Hayek, 2019-08-04.

September 26, 2019

QotD: Preventing “price gouging” is counter-productive in an emergency

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

During an emergency like a hurricane, many different categories of goods and services experience supply-demand shocks. The shock may be because of a fall in supply (e.g. oil companies can’t get gasoline into the area) or a spike in demand (e.g. for generators or plywood) or a combination of both. In a free market, prices will rise to help match supply and demand. Higher prices cause people with less valuable or more frivolous uses of the scarce goods to defer purchase, and can cause suppliers to expend extra effort to get product into the area, even diverting supplies from other areas.

When the government institutes price gouging laws in an emergency, the supply-demand mismatch that leads to the rising prices isn’t magically eliminated. First, without higher price incentives, all the incentives to get more supply into the area are lost. Supply and demand under these regulations can only be matched by rationing demand, and typically this is through queuing and increasing search costs (e.g. driving around all over the place looking for a station that is open and has gas). People who gain the limited supplies in this regime are thus those with a lot of time on their hands, where the marginal cost of queuing and driving around does not impose a lot of cost. Think about a roofer scrambling to repair roofs after the a storm — do they have time to have their trucks and crews sitting dormant in gas lines? Thus, price gouging laws tend to ensure that scarce goods in an emergency flow to those with the least use for them.

Warren Meyer, “Price Gouging Laws: Allocating Goods in An Emergency To People Who Have Nothing Much Valuable to Do”, Coyote Blog, 2017-08-26.

September 10, 2019

We’ve noticed this too…

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Government, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Sarah Hoyt on the increasing “green-ness” of her appliances — and the increasing uselessness of same:

For years we got expensive front loaders, and yet our clothes kept smelling, there were stains that would not come out, and these things seemed to last only 5 years, on the outside. And I knew it wasn’t our problem, as such, because at the same time we started noticing we couldn’t get our clothes clean, the detergent aisle of the supermarket sprouted an entire section of odor removing things, Febreeze got added to detergents, and, in general, people smelled odd …

Then the washer broke while we were also very, very broke (we were paying mortgage and rent in the run up to buying this. I saw an ad for, I THINK a $300 washer, and we went to look. What we found, instead, was a $200, not advertised washer. As we’re looking at it the saleswoman hurries over and tells us we don’t want it. This washer, she says, uses lots of water. For those who don’t know I suffer from an unusual form of eczema. While it’s triggered mostly by stress with a side of carbs, it can also, out of the blue, take offense at a slight trace of detergent left on the clothes. I’ve found that the eczema got markedly worse the less water the washer used. And it required me to run the washer three times, once with soap and two without to avoid major outbreaks. The idea of using lots and lots of water was great, so I was all excited. Which shocked the poor saleswoman halfway to death. I will point out, though, though that this washer washes well enough I can get away with only one extra rinse cycle and if I forget it it’s usually survivable. Also, our clothes don’t smell. Unfortunately, we’ve not found that [type] of washer any of the times we’ve walked through the appliance aisle, so I think that choice has been eliminated.

Certainly the choice of dishwashers that use “lots” (i.e. what they used 20 years ago) of water and electricity was never offered to us. And since we seemed to have really lousy luck with dishwashers, I found every time we replaced one over the last 20 years, they had less space for dishes (more insulation, to allow for less electricity) to the point that I needed to do 3 or even 4 loads for a family of four. I mean, I cook from scratch, but I really don’t use that much stuff. And it ran slower than before. Right now our dishwasher actually washes (a bonus) but it takes four hours to run a cycle. I rarely do more than one wash a day, though, because it’s just Dan and I, and we … well … the kids used a lot more glasses and little plates, and frankly meals get more complicated for four people.

All the same, there was a time there, for like 10 years, where we were running all this “green” approved stuff, and not only was I running the washer and drier more or less continuously, but to make things more “interesting” I was using MORE water and electricity, in the sense that I was running the appliances a ton more.

This of course is what I also found with the “low flush” toilets. We had them in our previous house, and we found that we spent an inordinate amount of time flushing the toilet. Also, since it took four or five flushes to do the job or one, the fact we were actually only using half the water per flush didn’t save any water. We spent instead twice to three times the amount of water the “high flush” toilets had spent.

All this, btw, to appease Paul Ehrlich — the prophet of wrong. As in, if he foresees something it will be wrong — and his ridiculous idea we’d run out of potable water in 1978. Apparently none of these people have noticed that 1978 has come and gone with no problems. And as for electricity, if they stop their idiocy about nuclear, it’s not even a consideration. (And no, Chernobyl isn’t a caution about nuclear energy. It’s a caution about stupid communist regimes. They can’t run anything — not even a nuclear plant — without destroying it.)

Lightbulbs are another favourite … several years back, our provincial government was pushing us all to get rid of our old incandescent bulbs and replace them with these great new energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. The new CFLs cost roughly ten times as much as the old bulbs, but we were assured up and down that they’d last twenty times longer, so we’d not only save money on electricity, but also have to replace the bulbs so infrequently. Of course, the CFL bulbs were pathetically bad — not only were they expensive, the light they gave was (at best) marginal and they didn’t even last as long as typical incandescent bulbs.

So now, of course, we’re being encouraged to use LED bulbs. Sure, they’re more expensive than the old incandescent bulbs, but they save on electricity and last many times longer! Except, of course, they don’t. The old incandescent bulbs in my office started to fail one after another, so when I was down to only one working bulb, I gave in and bought four replacement LED bulbs … they were on sale for only 2-3 times as much as the old bulbs! That was in March. I’ve already had to replace two of the LED bulbs. This is starting to feel familiar…

On the bright side (pun unintentional), the LED bulbs don’t provide the entertainment of a toxic waste cleanup in your home the way the CFL bulbs did when they were broken.

September 3, 2019

When “raising awareness” works too well

Filed under: Business, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Dylan Gibbons reports on a recent finding from the Harvard Business Review:

A new study published by the Harvard Business Review shows that in addition to men’s growing fears about women in the workforce and potentially being falsely accused, women are becoming more aware of the backlash and are actually less likely to hire certain women, specifically attractive women.

“Most of the reaction to #MeToo was celebratory; it assumed women were really going to benefit,” said Leanne Atwater, a management professor at the University of Houston. However, Atwater was skeptical. Rather than seeing an endless trail of steps forward before her, she and her colleagues forecasted a backlash.

“We said, ‘We aren’t sure this is going to go as positively as people think — there may be some fallout.'” And so, they tested their hypothesis.

The study began in early 2018. Two surveys were created, one for men and one for women. These surveys were then distributed to workers in various professional fields. In the end, they collected a large amount of data from 152 male and 303 female responders.

According to the study, 74% of women now say they are more willing now to speak out against harassment, while 77% of men anticipated being more careful about potentially inappropriate behaviour.

As for the idea that men do not know what constitutes harassment, the researchers found the opposite was true. Both genders appear to both know what constitutes harassment, and women may be more lenient with some of their own definitions of what constitutes harassment.

According to the report, “The surveys described 19 behaviors — for instance, continuing to ask a female subordinate out after she has said no, emailing sexual jokes to a female subordinate, and commenting on a female subordinate’s looks — and asked people whether they amounted to harassment.”

“Most men know what sexual harassment is, and most women know what it is,” Atwater says. “The idea that men don’t know their behavior is bad and that women are making a mountain out of a molehill is largely untrue. If anything, women are more lenient in defining harassment.”

Another recent action intended to increase the number of women in STEM subjects at an Australian university — by selectively lowering academic standards for admission — will almost certainly not achieve its stated goals, but will work to increase negative views of those women in the working world:

[A female engineer] also rightly points out that this lowering the bar for women is unfair to men losing the university places to women with lesser qualifications.

She points out that male students will notice that women are struggling more with the course material — the women allowed in because the bar was lowered.

She feels this is a net negative for women in the engineering sector in general, and I have to agree.

How, she asks, can employers be expected to see a woman’s engineering degree the same as a man’s if the employer knows the women got a break getting into the program?

She uses the term “positive discrimination” to describe the leg-up practices, and I really prefer that to “affirmative action” to describe it because the word “discrimination” is plain in it. And that’s exactly what it is. Discrimination against qualified people that will ultimately harm women who are qualified.

As she puts it, the only way to ensure that a woman’s qualifications mean as much as a man’s is to have equal hurdles for women.

I’m completely with her.

August 24, 2019

QotD: Strikes at non-profit organizations

Filed under: Business, Media, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The usual argument in favour of union power and the right to strike and so on is that the workers have to be able to band together to beat back the concentrated power of the capitalists. I’m all in favour of the freedom of association, considering it just as important as the freedom of speech so unions themselves hold no terrors for me. But that standard case that labour must be protected, protect itself perhaps, from the profit gouging activities of the owners rather fails when there are no profits, are no owners trying to maximise them as they grind the workers into the dust. Which is what we see here at National Public Radio. There’s the threat of a strike in the air and yes, it’s about pay scales. But there just aren’t any greedy plutocrats to take the cash from, nor are there any taking anything at present. Thus we see the finances of an organisation in a rather more stark manner.

[…]

Which is where we get to see the pay deal matter in the raw. At the auto companies (well, absent those in and near bankruptcy problems) it was indeed possible to start shouting “But what about the workers?” Why should they get less generous pay or terms just so that the capitalists can make out like bandits? But here we’ve got exactly the same problem. And there are no capitalists, there are no profits. The income into NPR is pretty much exclusively used to pay the employees of NPR. There are no leakages to the capitalists so, in the absence of more money, what can be done?

[…]

You can see NPR’s finances here and it becomes obvious that they have available only two of the traditional three ways of dealing with a higher wage bill. In for profit companies there is that possibility of reducing the profit to pay the workers more. In the absence of profiteering this cannot of course happen. Thus, in order to accommodate higher wages they can either raise prices to stations which carry the programs or NPR can employ fewer people at those higher wages. They’re restricted to only two of those ways normally put forward. Something which does rather aid in highlighting why and how companies, for profit ones, react the way they do to forced pay rises.

That NPR is a non-profit aids in highlighting exactly the problems that all organisations have with demands for higher wages. With no profits to cut they can either charge more or employ fewer people, nothing else.

Tim Worstall, “NPR’s Problems – Isn’t It Fun When Workers At A Non-Profit Seek To Strike?”, Forbes, 2017-07-15.

August 22, 2019

The “tragedy of the corporate commons”

Filed under: Business, Law, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Corporations are being urged to take on responsibility to a wider — in fact, the widest possible — group of people rather than the narrowly defined group of shareholders. Arthur Chrenkoff explains why this is not likely to improve either corporate governance or the wider world:

Whatever you thought of Friedman’s formulation, at least both the chain of accountability and the performance assessment criteria were pretty clear. Now, not so much. It sounds great on paper, this corporate social responsibility on steroids; we take everyone’s interests into account: shareholders, employees, customers, the society in general; everyone is a stakeholder. But what does it mean in practice? Previously, boards were accountable to people whose investment in the company made the company’s existence possible. That the company should have a good workforce, satisfy the customers, and obey the laws of the land all went without saying, being the necessary conditions for successful operations. Now, the Business Roundtable recommends everyone and everything has to be taken into consideration and companies need to “deliver value to all of them”. What if you can’t? What if the interests of the nearly infinite number of stakeholders conflict with one another? How do you gauge all these interests? How do you prioritise? How do you assess “value for all”?

What this initiative seems to me to be about is giving the official blessing for corporations to be political and social actors, to pursue every trendy cause and campaign for issues that have nothing to do with the actual business conducted or business in general, and to do so without the fear of any negative consequences for the management. It’s a great way to avoid any responsibility and accountability, particularly if the bottom line suffers as a result. “Sure, our revenue is way down, but our campaign for separate toilets for each of the 32 separate genders is what the society needs and expects from us”. Previously, you assessed the management on their stewardship of the company and its commercial performance. But since now that’s only one of the criteria to be taken into consideration, it will become more difficult to sanction bad and underperforming directors. They might suck at business but they’re woke enough so, hey, it balances out. Or more than balances: after all, why should the interests of a thousand shareholders be privileged over the interests of the amorphous but clearly much numerically bigger community? Satisfying the interests of shareholders is an objective exercise, delivering value to the country as a whole – or to the whole world – is so vague that it’s impossible to disprove; it’s unmeasurable and very much in the eye of the beholder. Which is how the new corporate class wants to keep it; if you are answerable to everyone, you are answerable to no one.

August 20, 2019

Jonathan Kay listened to the whole SNC-Lavalin report so you don’t have to…

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Update: Apparently the Thread Reader App only picked up the first couple of entries (it worked fine when I queued it up for publication yesterday). Here’s the text version:

I just listened to the entire ethics commissioner’s report on the SNC-Lavalin scandal while driving back from Maine. I loaded up the text in my VoiceAloud app, hit play, and the audio kept me going for 3 hours, all the way into central New York State, along the I-90….

As with any narrative, you begin to identify with certain characters. In my case, it was @Puglaas. I found it especially maddening the way everyone around her kept babbling about finding a “solution,” which was their settled euphemism for bullying her into helping SNC…

The level of condescension exhibited by everyone in and around the PMO toward @Puglaas was breathtaking. These Liberal dudes always kept pretending that they just wanted to make sure she had enough “information,” as if she were a law student, not the AG of a G7 nation …

At the same time, it was breathtaking the way SNC Lavalin was essentially able to turn the entire PMO, and major ministries, into its personal lobbying operation. Texts, emails, calls, in-person visits… it was like SNC-Lavalin had Trudeau’s PMO on retainer, like a law firm ….

I hadn’t realized SNC was able to mobilize, or attempted to mobilize, not one, not two, but THREE former SC of Canada justices on its behalf. This is the sort of blurring between corporate & govt operations that u expect in banana republics (or in the Irvings’ New Brunswick)…

The fact trudeau & those around him still pretend this is about “jobs” is…I don’t even know the word for it. The ethics comm essentially called it a lie. This was about partisan politics. How can JT say he “accepts” the report without coming to terms with this core finding?

When this scandal & election is done, we need an inquiry that gets to the bottom of the larger issue here: how a single quebec corp, one heavily impugned by its own action, was able to essential create legislation to help itself, got trudeau to ram it thru on a budget omnibus…

And then spent weeks pulling every lever in ottawa to try to override our constitutional system of govt so they could get off the hook for alleged crimes, culminating in the actual reconstitution of cabinet. SNC turned our govt into a joke. And trudeau still sez it’s about “jobs”

If yr attitude is that u dont want to educate yourself about this scandal, bcuz the only thing that matters is hating @AndrewScheer (an attitude some ppl have candidly expressed) pls reconsider. Even if u vote Liberal, the scandal exposed problems in our system that need fixing

Conservative governments have no doubt been equally solicitous to big well-connected firms. Leftists *especially*, the same ones dismissing this scandal bcuz it interferes with their elxn narrative, should be horrified that corporations are treating @Bill_Morneau & PMO as puppets

The fact that all of these Libs can bleat “jobz jobz jobz” with a straight face isnt just a symptom of the amoral cynicism of politics (tho it is that). It reflect the fact that we canadians expect that big corps will get coddled like this. We need to end it

If youre @AndrewScheer or @theJagmeetSingh, it’s fine to rake the Libs over the coals for lying to us. But all politicians lie. Tell us how you’d fix the system structurally to ensure that the PMO isn’t acting as a pro bono hanger-on to a major corporation

And if you’re a progressive activist of a certain age, go back & look at all the things @NaomiAKlein @Sheila_Copps Judie Rebick etc warned us about during the free trade battles…corporations dictating terms to elected govts. Well, guess what ? That’s what’s on display here…

In fact, one of the most tragicomic subplots here is the Libs running around in full panic bcuz SNC was about to have a board meeting the next day… Yes, that’s right: Trudeau’s PMO prioritized important legal decisions on the basis of some company’s board meeting.
Because Jobz.

What’s more, the full-court press on @Puglaas in the shadow of these meetings was itself based on another lie: Libs knew SNC HQ couldnt abandon quebec (till 2024) bcuz of representations made to Caisse in regard to purchase of a UK sub. Bullshit layered on bullshit
#BecauseJobz

I keep coming back to @Puglaas, & how she must have felt. How many cdns have been in a job where yr boss & his minions tried to pressure u to find an unethical “solution,” to help the boss keep his own job? then when u did what was right, u get turfed 4 not being a “team player”

This isnt just about Trudeau. One galling episode described is a meeting in which @Bill_Morneau pontificates to @Puglaas about how she doesnt have enuf “information” about econ effects of possible SNC crim conviction. @Puglaas asks Morneau if he’s done a study on it. Answer: no.

We talk a lot about toxic workplaces for women. hard not to see how the dudes who Trudeau assigned to push @Puglaas around on this file aren’t guilty of this. Their strategy was to make her feel ignorant bcuz she did the right thing. The PMO gaslit their own justice minister

There are several female Liberal MPs whom I have come to know and respect, such as @juliedabrusin @cafreeland @JulieDzerowicz. It is mortifying to watch them being forced to line up in defence of this.

As for SNC itself, I don’t really blame it for doing what it did. If u were running a company and knew you could dictate terms to a govt, why not? The lesson to other CEOs would be that if youre accused of a crime, just threaten to lay ppl off and move your HQ. Problem solved.

final note…u can see y the Libs are going hard with demagoguery about @AndrewScheer being white supremacist-adjacent. A traditional leftist claim was that Tories would sell out to corporate interests. That’s a hard claim for Libs to make now. bcuz the Libs have already done it

It’s been a day since I wrote this thread, & some commenters are saying the SNC scandal shows Trudeau & the Libs are unscrupulous people. But I dont think that’s it. I have met some of these protagonists, and have found them to be *more* public-minded than the average citizen…

As noted in a response to @staceylnewman, the problem is that politics changes ppl. There’s a chilling quote in the report, from a meeting, where a Lib says to @Puglaas (paraphrasing here) “It doesn’t matter how great our policies are. We need to get re-elected to implement them”

To me, that sums everything up: The means justifies the ends, bcuz the ends (the “good” side wins power, & the “bad” side loses) are taken to have existential importance. That’s the myth that leads all politicians astray. If JT just admitted this, I bet many would forgive him

August 18, 2019

QotD: “Hitting back” at protectionist policies

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

You buy lawn-care services from company XYZ located on the other side of town. Your neighbor, Mr. Stump, takes it upon himself to hold you up at gunpoint to the tune of $25 each time you buy services from XYZ rather than from Stump’s teenage son. You are less powerful than Stump and, not being suicidal, you pay the “tariff” that he officiously demands. But Stump is a magnanimous fellow, and so he agrees to a deal with XYZ: Stump drops his tariffs on your purchases from XYZ in return for XYZ agreeing to raise the price it charges you by $15.

But soon a trade dispute erupts. Stump discovers – correctly, we can assume – that XYZ is charging you less for its lawn-care services than Stump agreed is acceptable for you to be charged and that XYZ agreed in the trade deal to charge. Stump, being a master negotiator, threatens to reimpose the $25 tariff on you unless and until XYZ raises the price it charges you to at least the level that Stump has divined is acceptable and that is enshrined in the terms of the trade agreement between him and XYZ. Alas, XYZ gives in and agrees to raise the price it charges you. Stump then boasts that, by not letting XYZ get away with breaking its word in the trade deal, he is not only protecting the neighborhood from dangerously low prices but is also upholding the sacred rule of law and the sanctity of contractual agreements.

Of course, in reality, Stump’s presumptuous exercise of the power to rob you impose a tariff on you whenever you engage in commerce that he finds objectionable is a wrong inflicted on you and on your trading partner, XYZ. The fact that the practicalities of the situation result in your and XYZ going along with the “deal” to entice Stump to stop robbing you each time you buy XYZ’s services does not ethically oblige you to stick to the terms of the deal if you can, in secret, get better terms from XYZ. When Stump threatens to reimpose on you the $25 tariff, he harms you. That is, when in response to Stump’s threat to reimpose the tariff XYZ agrees to abide by the terms of its trade agreement with Stump and raise the price that it charges you, you are made worse off, not better off.

Stump’s enforcement of this agreement, in short, does not protect you from further victimization in the future; instead, that enforcement is itself an act of victimizing you. Successful enforcement of this agreement assures you a future less prosperous than it would be were Stump instead to ignore XYZ’s “violation” of the deal.

Note: we can all agree that, between the two options (1) $25 tariff and (2) no tariff but an enforced price-hike, under the trade agreement, of $15, that the second option is better for you than the first option. It is in this limited sense that trade agreements in reality are beneficial. But there’s a third option: (3) Stump does not interfere with your commerce and you pay whatever price you negotiate with XYZ without that price being artificially affected by Stump’s interference. This third option is, for you, the best of the three – and it’s the only fully ethical one of the bunch. (So when Dan Griswold, myself, and other free-traders defend trade agreements, we do so with the realistic recognition that option (3) is politically infeasible. Given this unfortunate infeasibility of option (3), we endorse option (2) over option (1).)

Don Boudreaux, “Strict Enforcement of an Impoverishing Deal Assures Continuing Impoverishment”, Café Hayek, 2017-07-07.

August 17, 2019

QotD: Bridal traditions

Filed under: Business, Europe, Humour, Italy — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The soap bottle had another claim. “Blue Lavender Essence Lore: Brides in Italy perfumed their wedding clothes with lavender in order to calm their prenuptial jitters”

Left unspoken: Didn’t do jack. You’d think the Brides in Italy would have figured this out in short order, eh? “Here, my child. Soak your dress in lavender. It will calm your nerves.” Did it work for you, mama? “No, I spent the morning sobbing and throwing up in rank terror, since I had only met your father the previous night, and he had the breath of cheese far gone with mold. But this is what we do, for we are superstitious peasants whose worldview is derived not from empirical observation of the world, but sage wisdom Grandmama got from her great-grandmama. Now put these grape stems up your nose so your first-born will be a boy.”

James Lileks, Star Tribune, 2004-05-24.

August 14, 2019

1950s Willys Jeep Promotional Film – The Jeep Family Of 4 Wheel Drive Vehicles

Filed under: Business, History, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

PeriscopeFilm II
Published on 3 Sep 2015

Willys, the “World’s Largest Manufacturer of Utility Vehicles,” presents the Jeep Family of 4-Wheel Drive Vehicles and Special Equipment, a circa 1954 black-and-white film promoting Jeeps produced for civilian use. Following the success of Jeeps during World War II, the film opens with an explanation of how the vehicles soon their way to civilian use. Some of the vehicles seen in this film are used by construction companies, farmers, firefighters, and even at airports to tow aircraft and move cargo trailers and plow snow. At mark 02:49 the film introduces other types of Jeep equipment, such as a generator that turns the vehicle “into a mobile source of electric power to operate saws, communication equipment, motion picture equipment, flood and spotlights. And indeed any electrical equipment that must be moved around over bad terrain or in bad weather.” Scenes also capture telephone company repair crews, oil field crews, plus local and state road crews and construction companies. A Jeep is shown at a cemetery at mark 04:03 moving sand, shrubs, and burial equipment around the grounds in addition to lifting memorial markers. The viewer learns about variable engine speeds beginning at mark 05:55 with an up-close look at an engine and a discussion of its power, as well as various ways that power can be tapped for various operations. As it continues the film touts the Jeep rotary cutter (mark 07:45) as high brush is cut down, a hammer mill (mark 08:15), and a trencher (mark 08:30). There are forklift attachments, front and rear winches, as a front winch is shown pulling a dead tree from the ground (mark 10:10). The sales pitch rolls on at mark 11:42 showing some Jeep steel tops including the half-cab, master, and standard top — “each one designed for a special purpose but all three designed to stand up in rough hard service year after year.” Mark 12:00 begins an explanation of the vehicle’s 4-wheel drive capabilities, meaning that the vehicle “can go anywhere to do its job” including remote camping and hunting spots, while by mark 13:48 there’s a look at a Willys sedan delivery vehicle as grocery store employees are shown loading items into the back, and the Willys pick-up trick at mark 14:52. Other models are shown hauling grain and livestock, as well as an ambulance (mark 17:00).

Jeep is a brand of American automobiles that is a division of FCA US LLC (formerly Chrysler Group, LLC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The original Jeep was the prototype Bantam BRC. Willys MB Jeeps went into production in 1941 specifically for the military, arguably making them the oldest four-wheel drive mass-production vehicles now known as SUVs. The Jeep became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the United States Army and the Allies during World War II, as well as the postwar period. The term became common worldwide in the wake of the war. The first civilian models were produced in 1945. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover. Many Jeep variants serving similar military and civilian roles have since been designed in other nations. Willys-Overland and Ford, under the direction of Charles E. Sorensen (Vice-President of Ford during World War II), produced about 640,000 Jeeps towards the war effort, which accounted for approximately 18% of all the wheeled military vehicles built in the U.S. during the war.

From 1945 onwards, Willys took its four-wheel drive vehicle to the public with its CJ (Civilian Jeep) versions, making these the first mass-produced 4×4 civilian vehicles. In 1948, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission agreed with American Bantam that the idea of creating the Jeep was originated and developed by American Bantam in collaboration with some U.S. Army officers. The commission forbade Willys from claiming, directly or by implication, that it had created or designed the Jeep, and allowed it only to claim that it contributed to the development of the vehicle. However, American Bantam went bankrupt by 1950, and Willys was granted the “Jeep” trademark in 1950.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com

August 12, 2019

Australia’s government broadband fiasco might be a useful lesson for Senator Warren

Filed under: Australia, Business, Economics, Government, Politics, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the race for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination, Senator Elizabeth Warren recently proposed a government-provided broadband rollout across the United States to compete with or supplant the existing private ISPs. Arthur Chrenkoff suggests that looking at Australia’s experience with a very similar plan might encourage her to abandon her proposal after a brief airing on the campaign trail:

Senator Elizabeth Warren speaking at the Iowa Democrats Hall of Fame Celebration in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on 9 June, 2019.
Photo by Lorie Shaull via Wikimedia Commons.

Maybe Senator Warren should have a pow-wow first with IT experts from Australia, who could enlighten her about our country’s 12-years-and-counting saga of the National Broadband Network, a Labor government initiative that the -then leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, described as “a white elephant on a massive scale” but later adopted and continued while in government.

It started in 2007 as a policy for a government-rolled out broadband network, in most areas duplicating internet services already provided by private sector providers (mainly through the existing copper wire telephony network), which would be available as an option to all Australian households. In most cases it would be achieved through wired technology (fibre to the premises, later downgraded to a cheaper fibre to the node) with a satellite connection available to the most remote areas where cabling was impractical.

I remember thinking then that the project was an absurd waste of taxpayers’ money for a service of the type that telecommunication companies would be able and willing to provide in any case. At most, there was an argument that the government could step in and provide the infrastructure in some country areas where there was no commercial case for the private providers to proceed. Call me a clairvoyant but it was pretty clear to me that “broadband for all” would take a lot longer to roll out that planned, would cost significantly more than initially budgeted, and would very likely be technologically obsolete by the time it was finished.

August 8, 2019

An excellent illustration of market segmentation

Filed under: Britain, Business — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Wikipedia entry for “market segmentation” defines it this way:

“BEER”by Jonnee is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Market segmentation is the activity of dividing a broad consumer or business market, normally consisting of existing and potential customers, into sub-groups of consumers (known as segments) based on some type of shared characteristics. In dividing or segmenting markets, researchers typically look for common characteristics such as shared needs, common interests, similar lifestyles or even similar demographic profiles.

No single product is going to be universally popular, and it’s generally a bad idea to present it that way. The producers of a new product ideally try to identify the groups of potential customers who are more likely to want to buy the new product, and tailor their advertising to those groups. The more accurately they can identify and communicate with these customer groups, the greater the chances that the product will be a success in the market.

Beer isn’t universally popular (Gasp! Shock! Horror!), so brewers try to identify different kinds of beer drinkers and market their brews to those sub-groups:

The point about a market being that you can put your stuff out there and see who buys it. The buyers will – they are rational beings after all – select from the varied offerings and their selections will be the ones which best increase their utility by their own measurements of that utility. Thus the Shagmenowbigboypint might get a bit more business toward closing time, who knows? Not necessarily entirely female business either.

And even to stop being puerile about it. We’ve only this one system that does provide multiple choices – that’s what a market is. But in order for ever finer meeting of utility it’s necessary for ever finer slices of the market to be addressed. That is, we need to have free market entry so we can find out what it is that actually meets peoples’ desires.

Banning something that appeals to some slice of that market is thus defeating the point and object of that very market’s existence. Sure, lots of women won’t buy a sexist beer. Some will, as will some men. The aim and art of the whole exercise being to allow those who won’t not to, those who will to.

Or, as we can put it, every beer being Shagmenowbigboypint is as bad as no beer being Shagmenowbigboypint.

August 5, 2019

How Boeing lost its mojo

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Government, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Rafe Champion linked to this interesting thumbnail-sketch history of the decline and fall of Boeing:

Let’s start by admiring the company that was Boeing, so we can know what has been lost. As one journalist put it in 2000, “Boeing has always been less a business than an association of engineers devoted to building amazing flying machines.”

For the bulk of the 20th century, Boeing made miracles. Its engineers designed the B-52 in a weekend, bet the company on the 707, and built the 747 despite deep observer skepticism. The 737 started coming off the assembly line in 1967, and it was such a good design it was still the company’s top moneymaker thirty years later.

How did Boeing make miracles in civilian aircraft? In short, the the civilian engineers were in charge. And it fell apart because the company, due to a merger, killed its engineering-first culture.

What Happened?

In 1993, Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, Bill Perry, called defense contractor CEOs to a dinner, nicknamed “the last supper.” He told them to merge with each other so as, in the classic excuse used by monopolists, to find efficiencies in their businesses. The rationale was that post-Cold War era military spending reductions demanded a leaner defense base. In reality, Perry had been a long-time mergers and acquisitions investment banker working with industry ally Norm Augustine, the eventual CEO of Lockheed Martin.

Perry was so aggressive about encouraging mergers that he put together an accounting scheme to have the Pentagon itself pay merger costs, which resulted in a bevy of consolidation among contractors and subcontractors. In 1997, Boeing, with both a commercial and military division, ended up buying McDonnell Douglas, a major aerospace company and competitor. With this purchase, the airline market radically consolidated.

Unlike Boeing, McDonnell Douglas was run by financiers rather than engineers. And though Boeing was the buyer, McDonnell Douglas executives somehow took power in what analysts started calling a “reverse takeover.” The joke in Seattle was, “McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money.”

[…]

The key corporate protection that had protected Boeing engineering culture was a wall inside the company between the civilian division and military divisions. This wall was designed to prevent the military procurement process from corrupting civilian aviation. As aerospace engineers Pierre Sprey and Chuck Spinney noted, military procurement and engineering created a corrupt design process, with unnecessary complexity, poor safety standards, “wishful thinking projections” on performance, and so forth. Military contractors subcontract based on political concerns, not engineering ones. If contractors need to influence a Senator from Montana, they will place production of a component in Montana, even if no one in the state can do the work.

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